“I say, goody, hold your foul tongue, or I’ll correct you as you little think for,” said Bell. “You! what harm can you do me, I wonder?—you that are lost, and I a holy person.” “A holy person! How do you mean holy?” asked Bell, laughing. “How do you mean holy! Why, sure of heaven, to be sure. I’m sure of heaven, I tell you, and you are lost! God has given me nothing else, for a miserable life I’ve had of it; but he has given me grace, and is not that enough?” “You must keep it close locked up somewhere, for never a one found out you had it,” said Mrs. Bell. “I doubt the Talbots that have been so kind to you have never seen much of your grace.” “Kind to me! The proud, mean, slandering folks! You little know the Talbots if you think they can be generous to anybody. They’ll meet you hereafter when I shall be in a better place!” “That is pretty well,” said Bell, “when you have had bed and board, clothes and comfort, from that family from your youth up. Suppose I tell them what you say, neighbour.” “As you please. It is only what I have told them myself. I shall look to hear you curse them soon, Mrs. Bell, for they have been told how you take parish money for your dead child. So you got a blanket to keep the boy warm? He is in a hot place now,—a little unregenerate devil as he was! If he was not to be saved, you are well off to be rid of him so soon.” The husband and wife quickened their pace till they got out of hearing, the one full of disgust, the other of the fear of detection. She was anxious to receive her money before the widow should arrive; but there was already such a crowd about the gates that she saw she must wait long for her turn. Two of the paupers had secured a seat on the door-step of an opposite house: the one, a well-known beggar, whose occupation had never been effectually interfered with by the police; the other, a young man, who was jeered at as a stranger by some who weekly resorted to this place. One gave him joy of his admission to the pauper brotherhood; another asked how he liked waiting on the great; a third observed that he could not judge till he had waited two hours in the snow of a winter’s noon. “Never fret yourself for their gibes, Hunt,” said Childe, the beggar. “You are more in the way to do well than you have been this many a day. You may make what you will of the great, if you do but know how to set about it.” “I’m glad to hear it,” said Hunt, fidgeting about in a state of great agitation. “I’m sure the rich know well enough what to make of us. Not a word do we ever hear from them about our right to be kept from starvation; and they expect us to be wonderfully grateful for a parish dole, while they cut off a pound of meat a week from every poor soul’s allowance within yonder walls, and advise us to mix rye with our wheaten bread.—’Tis true, as I’m alive! A man told me so just now as he came out of yonder gate.”